RAFALE CONTROVERSY
WHEN WAS RAFALE FIRST CHOSEN ?
Indian air force had been operating the mig 21since the 63 which were the greatest aircrafts of their times . The average life of an fighter aircraft is 30 years and and these aircrafts had already compleated their life cycle by the 1995 but the indian air force had no option other than to maintain these old aged aircraft in active service
More over india lacked in the air delivary of its NUCLEAR BOMBS because at that time only the mirage 2000 and the jaguar where able to perform this role and these aircrafts could only perform their role of nuclear delivary for Pakistan but if INDIA and CHINA went on a nuclear war and if all the indian nuclear ballestic misseles are intersepted in the atmosphere then the aircrafts whould have to do that rale but then the mirages and the jaguars did not had the range to hit the big cities like SHANGHAI , BEIGING , NIANJING, HONGKONG, SHENYANG, GUANGZHOU so rafale was chosen to perform the role of a tactical nuclear bomber which can take the indian nuclear bombs to their designated targets deep inside Chinese territory
All chinese cities are on the eastern cost
and the problem with the JAGUARS and MIRGE 2000 where also like that they too have had compleated their 40% of their lifecycle and the sukhoi that where purchased where mainly bought for the air dominance role i.e. they where to fight the enemy aircraft which would come in indian airspace
Finally In 2002 under the Vajpayee Government it was decided to to launch a tender MRCA [MULTI ROLE COMBAT AIRCRAFT ] which was a tender for the single engine aircraft to meet up with the challange of depleting strength of the fighter squadrons in the Indian air force
WHAT WENT ON WITH THE DEAL AFTER THE NEW GOVERNMENT GOT ELECTED IN 2004
WHEN the UPA government stepped in 2004 they went on for doing some changes in the tender and it was converted into twin engine fighetr aircraft . in 2011 Dassault Rafale won the contract . The dassault company went on for a $80 million for a single aircraft but they didnt mentioned that the aircraft had no mordern avionics , jammers , air to air missiles , air to groound bombs .
But when the DPP [defence procourement procedure ] 2011 came out in public it simply stated that the government knew that dassault aviation had lied to the indian government but instead of abandoning the tender the government still kept on negotiating with the dassault aviation .
In 2011, 126 rafale fighters which where chosen where actually without avionics , weapons , electronic counter measures costed around $10 billion
But if all the mordern aivionics and the sophestications would had been inducted in the aircraft then the aircraft would have had costed $35 billion of the total deal which was 3 times greater in price then the offered aircraft and this was just the one time purchase of the aircraft but the maintainence costs and the infrastructure costs where not counted
We know that the western aircrafts are far more superiour then the russian aircraft and the average availibility rate of the western air crafts is around 85% which means that at any given point of time out of the total aircrafts 85% are available and are ready to go on for war , where as the availability rate of the russian aircraft is around 50% .
So to meet up with the avalibiliy rate of the western aicraft the countries all around the world which operates the western aircrafts have to spend a tonn money on the maintainence of the aircraft because the aircraft had to be maintained for its entire life which is till its age of 30 to 40 years which manifolds the cost of maintaining the aircraft
so for the western fighters the cost of purchasing the aircraft is 2 to 3 times less then cost of maintaing the aircraft for its entire life cycle so if the government would had decided to go up with the 126 order of the rafale aircraft then the airforce would have had not accepted the aircraft without mordern avionics and the specifications of that time because if these basic requirements would have had not been there in the aircraft then the life of the pilot flying the rafale would be always in risk
What happened when the new NDA government came to power
When the Modi Government came to power in 2014 the airforce approched the government for the continution of the negotiations with the dassault
and the CCS [cabinet committe on security ] found out that if they would have had gone with the actual price of $35 billion for the aircraft + the maintainence cost of approx twice that of the purchasing the aircraft + the cost of maintaing the NUCLEAR delivary aircraft
[[[ nuclear delivary aicrafts are more costly than the normal fighter aircraft because they would have to go for long diatances and their radar signature are tried to be decreased , they would had to have high level of counter measures against the anti air missiles and the enemy fighter aircraft . But the biggest factor contributing to the hike in the price of these aircrats is becuse the selling of nuclear material and the nuclear delivry systems is BANNED because of the NUCLEAR NON PROLIFERATION TREATY (NPT) according to which harsh sanctions would be imposed on the countries which buy or sell a nuclear delivary systems ]]]
these where the factors which resulted in the total cost of the 126 aircrafts to be raised to be around ""$105 billion ""
The Government of India did not approved the purchase of 126 aircraft but the earlier government maid a commitment to buy the aircrafts so if the modi government would have had cancelled the deal then the reputation of the indian government and the trust in the decision making capability would had been at stake but the the government did not had that much amount of money to spend on for 126 nuclear delivary aircraft
So the then defence minister Manohar Parrikar went to the air force and asked them about their minimum requirement for a dedicated NUCLEAR delivary aircraft
The airforce replied with a requirement of 2 squadrons where 1 suadron consisted of 16 aircraft so a total OF 36 NUKE capable aircrafts where ordered in 2016 during the visit of PM Modi to France and a total of 36 aircrafts where ordered in a total sum of $8 billion which included the avionics , weapons , radars , jammers
issue with the contracts given to reliance
people say that why the contract orders where taken from the HAL and given to the reliance company so the reasons are as follow
1. first of all reliance will not produce rafale they will just setup a unit in india which will provide the thechnial assistance with the help of the dassault aviation to just maintain the aircraft after they are purchased
2. HAL has produced a western aircraft in the 1980`s so they lacked experienced in producing a western aircraft
3. the HAL has never compleated the orders given to them on time because the hal is producin 40 tejas mk 1 since 2013 HAL is been able to produce only 25 aircrafts in 8 years and also their is also quality control issue in hal
CONCLUSION
at first instant it looks like there had been some kind of scam in the deal but it is not the case the hike in the prices is simply because of the new modern avionics , the nuclear delivary features the planes lookes like to be costly
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